1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of designing a dental prosthesis model of crown, bridge, or the like by using a computer; and a computer program product storing a program for executing this method.
2. Related Background Art
A dental prosthesis such as crown, bridge, or the like has been made by a process in which a dentist takes an impression of abutment teeth and their surrounding teeth and, based on it, a dental technician makes the dental prosthesis. The conventional method mainly comprises manual operations, thus requiring much labor and time for designing and making the dental prosthesis.
Accordingly, there has been proposed and being realized a method in which configurations of abutment teeth, their adjacent and pairing teeth, and the like are fed into a computer, a dental prosthesis model conforming thereto is made on the computer, and a dental prosthesis is machined on the basis of thus made model, i.e., method of making a dental prosthesis by means of CAD/CAM (computer aided design/computer aided manufacture) technique. Specifically, there has been SOPHA system of Sopha (France) using a technique in which a crown model is expressed and designed on a computer and is stored in a database.
Nevertheless, a dental prosthesis is used not only for crowns but also for bridges and the like. In order to design all kinds of dental prostheses on a computer (by means of CAD/CAM technique), it is necessary to design all kinds of dental prosthesis models for crowns, pontics, bridges, and the like. In this case, according to the conventional method, it is necessary for each of the crowns, pontics, and bridges to be designed on the computer and be arranged in a database, thereby requiring a very large database. Accordingly, the labor of management increases, thus making it difficult to achieve efficient designing.